


The Turks' SOLDIER

by BloomingMiracle (Luna264)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Gen, Kunsel POV, Kunsel is a Turk, i guess you COULD read kunsel and cissneis relationship as romantic but that wasnt the intent, is it an au? is it a headcanon?, its here is what it is, sorta - Freeform, treat all headcanons like aus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 21:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30044772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna264/pseuds/BloomingMiracle
Summary: Kunsel spends his early teens being shuffled from Turk to Turk. He isn’t a dumb kid-- it becomes increasingly clear, the longer he spends with any of them, that they aren’t supposed to have him.It’s Cissnei that first brings it up, even though they both know already; Shinra wouldn’t care that the Turks have a small bunch of twelve year olds, because Shinra loves to commit war crimes. There has to be another reason they’re secret.They both train, against the Turks and against the other hidden kids and most of all against each other, because they’re partners in this work like in any other and they both have to be prepared.
Relationships: Cissnei & Kunsel (Compilation of FFVII), Zack Fair & Kunsel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Turks' SOLDIER

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Preventing Calamity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15573330) by [Sinnatious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinnatious/pseuds/Sinnatious). 



> Once the idea of Turk!Kunsel was presented, I had Some Thoughts

Kunsel is not an orphan of the Wutai War. He’s a bit too old for that.

He’s still a war orphan, though, even though no one will call it that.

Shinra spread itself across its starting continent first, calling it “an expansion of industrialized civilization” and crushing any and all resistance beneath its boot. Resistances like the one Kunsel’s parents had been part of. Had died for.

He’d been picked up by the Turks before he’d even known they were gone. He’d attended no funeral.

(There had been a funeral, not that he ever knew. It had been for him, too.)

Kunsel spends his early teens being shuffled from Turk to Turk. He isn’t a dumb kid-- it becomes increasingly clear, the longer he spends with any of them, that they aren’t supposed to have him.

He’s not the only kid like this, shuffled from hiding place to hiding place under a codename (his is Skein) until they’re old enough to be genuinely inducted into the ranks. There’s a girl he only knows to call Cissnei, for example. They’re as close as they can get to being officially paired up-- someday, Kunsel thinks they’ll be expected to operate as one person with two separate bodies.

It’s Cissnei that first brings it up, even though they both know already; Shinra wouldn’t care that the Turks have a small bunch of twelve year olds, because Shinra  _ loves _ to commit war crimes. There has to be another reason they’re secret.

Kunsel shrugs, and quirks her a smile in a practiced way that means something, and the two duck behind cover to avoid a couple of infantrymen who are supposed to wander around the base and report back to the president.

Whatever incident left Cissnei orphaned also left her deaf in one ear, just like Kunsel’s own circumstances left him with an inability to focus on one spot long enough to aim a rifle without his vision blurring. They have to cover for each other.

It’s another year before they have any real idea why they might be a secret.

Their current minder informs them over breakfast that the Turks have deemed the SOLDIER First Classes a potential threat to security that they need to be prepared to neutralize if necessary. No one outside the division can know they’re even being monitored, or it will be taken as treason.

In order to do this properly, one of them will have to join the SOLDIER program.

Kunsel and Cissnei exchange a look. They already know who’s going in.

After all, SOLDIERs don’t need to use guns.

They both train, against the Turks and against the other hidden kids and most of all against each other, because they’re partners in this work like in any other and they both have to be prepared.

When it’s time for Kunsel to enter the program, he uses his real name rather than the code he’s been designated by for so long; less of a chance of anyone with too many of the right chips piecing them together that way. It feels weird, to hear it so casually from the mouths of near strangers, when his own other half doesn’t even know it.

He throws himself into his SOLDIER training, becoming the best SOLDIER he can be, and when he has the time he goes back to where the Turks gather with his codename and trains against Cissnei so she might be prepared to do their duty, too.

‘Might’ being the operative word. It’s disconcerting how easy it is to win against her now, when before she was usually the better of them. They comfort each other, best as they can, with the idea that it’s because he knows all her tricks already.

Then, Kunsel finds something extraordinary.

Kunsel finds Zack Fair.

Zack is what can only be called a prodigy, for good or ill when the skills being measured are the ones put to use in SOLDIER. He  _ excels  _ at the ‘Three Cs’ of being a SOLDIER; combat, charm, and compartmentalizing his actions and the actions of those around him.

In short, he’s Shinra’s perfect weapon, handed to them on a silver platter completely by accident.

Kunsel intends to make better use of him than they can, by taking advantage of the one quality that outshone all those skills. Zack is, Kunsel learns quickly, unrelentingly loyal to the  _ people _ in his life. He became a SOLDIER not only for the chance to be a hero, but to give everyone in his middle of nowhere hometown (one that was spared the horrors of Shinra’s expansion by virtue of being small enough to fold into their influence without a single fired shot) better lives.

Kunsel slots himself securely into Zack’s life by participating in whatever he wants to do together (mostly sparring, which he’s distressingly good at for someone who wasn’t raised into fighting) and answering any questions he has about how Shinra works.

He’s the one to deliver Zack the news of Rhapsodos’ defection and disappearance.

He and Cissnei are rather pleased with the progression of the Zack project until the unthinkable happens.

Angeal Hewley takes an interest.

Kunsel is still Zack’s friend, of course, because Zack doesn’t drop people like a Turk might, but in the face of a First offering to mentor him, well… Zack Fair isn’t an idiot, much as he might seem to be when he’s compartmentalizing, and he knows what he wants, even if he doesn’t know how much he shouldn’t.

Cissnei suggests that maybe Zack’s arrival in SOLDIER wasn’t so accidental after all, even if they can’t find any files suggesting as such, and Kunsel points out that they shouldn’t operate under assumptions either way.

“We still have to push back on this, somehow,” she says. “Is there anything else you can do up there, Skein?”

“Not directly,” Kunsel says. “I can mess with his assignments a little bit? It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to have Turks with him on some missions.”

“The Turks’ SOLDIER,” Cissnei muses lightheartedly. “Wasn’t that supposed to be you?”

“What, you don’t want two?” He elbows her playfully in the side. “I thought you loved me.”

They both have to do the work, in pieces, to avoid either of them getting caught, but they’re used to working as one agent.

Tseng is a Turk in a vein that Kunsel and Cissnei aren’t, in that the company’s executives have been technically aware of his involvement since it began. He never really seems to want to do his job, but they can’t blame him; they know what his job is.

In fact, they might even know better than  _ he _ does-- they’ve kept the information regarding precisely how important Zack is close to their chest, and they chose Tseng very specifically for this task. For one thing, he’s technically in charge of Cissnei’s day to day (because Veld thought it would be good for him) which means there’s a nonzero chance of his involvement connecting  _ her _ to Zack as well with no additional effort on their part.

For another, they’ve noticed some similarities in his priorities to those of their prodigal SOLDIER, even if the behaviors are rather different.

Zack and Tseng are loyal to  _ people, _ not to faceless corporate entities that are probably gonna destroy the world someday if left unchecked.

Their investment pays off. Zack takes a liking to Tseng and, when they meet, Cissnei. Kunsel is pretty confident they’ve got enough leverage, if the conflict should open up now, even if Zack’s promotion to First takes him out of Kunsel’s immediate range.

“I have good news, and I have bad news,” Cissnei says during a break in one of their sparring sessions. Shinra’s enhancements of Kunsel are getting more and more thorough, and she’s having a harder and harder time keeping up.

“Good news first,” Kunsel decides, as he knows she knew he would.

“Hewley’s dead.” Cissnei reaches into her suit and pulls out a file. “For real this time. No reports on what happened, but Fair was the only witness, so…”

“Ah, that’s  _ that  _ explained.” Zack  _ had _ been off the last couple days. He’d asked everyone to leave him alone for a little while, and he hadn’t looked up from staring numbly at his own hands when he’d done it. “Probably had to kill him himself, poor thing.”

“Bad news is he’s got a new tie in to the company’s interests,” Cissnei continues. “Infantryman by the name of Cloud Strife, and the only reason Strife isn’t a SOLDIER is from washing out.”

“I’ll keep an eye on Strife, too, then,” Kunsel sighs. “May as well. Might be easier than working Zack right now, anyways.”

Cissnei nods. “Good idea. Uh…”

“I don’t know, either,” Kunsel says, because he  _ doesn’t _ know if Zack is going to be okay after all this. They want Hewley’s death to be good news, but Zack loved the man as completely as he loved anything else.

That was the thing they hadn’t expected, when they’d started the Zack problem; getting attached. They really should have considered the possibility. After all, Zack was charming, and refreshingly genuine.

Cissnei shakes her head. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “They’re putting him on leave to Costa del Sol soon, and I’ve been assigned to watch him.”

Kunsel blinks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess they noticed he got attached to me, or something. Tseng’s on reserve to join me if anything happens, too.”

“That’s… a good thing, right?”

“I dunno, maybe.” Cissnei shrugs. “I’ll try and make it one.”

The next time they get the chance to talk face to face, it’s after Zack and Cloud are gone, lost in the fallout of the Nibelheim incident that claimed Sephiroth, too.

The details around the incident are vague, but it seems Zack had something to do with whatever ultimately claimed Sephiroth. Sounds like him. 

Rhapsodos is now the only threat from the original assignment unaccounted for. Their investigations turn up nothing, except for the fact that he’s now specifically a person of interest to Deepground, which is troubling in its own right.

“I hope he dies, just so they can’t use him,” Kunsel says.

“Fate worse than death,” Cissnei agrees. “Hey, check these out.”

She passes him some files, and he flips through them. “They’re… trying to clone Sephiroth?”

“Under that big house in Nibelheim,” Cissnei confirms. “Apparently, they’re using the survivors from the incident.”

Kunsel’s eyes widen. “You don’t think--”

“SOLDIERs are sturdy,” she says. “It’s possible.”

“He--” Kunsel tries to express how he feels about the whole situation, but Cissnei grabs him and flips him over her head.

They spend the next four years preparing for every inevitability, only to be interrupted when Zack and Cloud break free on their own and they have to throw every plan out the window.

Cissnei is the first volunteer on the squad to seek him out, and between her help and his extant skill, Zack is able to survive mostly out of Shinra’s reach for almost a year, until he takes a gamble on heading to Midgar to mitigate the force they can actually set against him and waltzes right into an ambush before the Turks can retrieve him.

They  _ could _ have hidden him. And Strife. Both of them. Kunsel  _ knows _ they could have, because he’s seen them do it before.

Maybe it’s a small mercy, that Kunsel was on an away assignment then and so couldn't be retrieved for that. Maybe if he’d been there, he could have saved Zack. Maybe it doesn’t matter either way.

No use dwelling on maybes.

It isn’t long before Cissnei’s whole unit is forced underground, anyways. Tseng reports them dead so they can get away.

There isn’t a way to communicate directly without compromising them, but Kunsel and Cissnei had codes for a reason. Even if she can’t respond, he’ll send her unit the intelligence they need to do their duty.

They have no duty to Shinra, not anymore, but they still have work to do.

They will always have work to do.

And Kunsel, the Turks’ SOLDIER, will do his part in it.


End file.
